Week of Mar 21st 2010

Okay, since I'm doing this as a bit of a retrospective, I'll see what I can do to get it all right.

This weeks theme:

Overwhelmingly, this weeks theme was Tik N Chik.

What is that? Tik N Chik is a style of cooking a whole fish in an Achiote marinade created (I think) on Isla Mujeres in the Yucatan in Mexico.

What is Achiote?

Achiote is commonly called Annatto, and used primarily for color in American and European cuisine. It's made from the crushed seeds of the Bixa Orellana bush.

The taste I can best describe as kind of smokey/earthy/savory. It's really fantastic in this recipe.

Quick Achiote marinade/rub for fish and chicken in the style of Tik n Chik:

1 Tbsp Achiote paste
Juice of 1 orange and/or 1 lime
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1/4 C olive oil
Salt & Pepper to taste

Sunday:

I used this marinade/rub once with orange and once with lime juice. I tried the orange version on Arctic Char. I rubbed it first with salt and pepper and then basted with the marinade.

I was able to try out the new cedar planks that were given to me for my birthday for the first time. The goal of these is to simulate a more smokey, charcoal grill flavor on the gas grill.

I grilled the Char skin down on the grill on the boards basting the Char one time about halfway through the cooking. I think that it probably cooked all the way through in about 15 minutes.

Monday:

I ended up dropping by Costco and picking up a nice pair of thick Ahi filets which I tried an impromptu pistachio crust on.

I didn't do anything particularly interesting or smart to make the crust or to get the pistachios to stick. I just crushed them in a mortar and pestle and stuck them on with some salt and pepper. I then seared the whole thing in a medium-hot skillet with a small amount of olive oil.

The filet was thick enough that I had to slice them in half to about 3/4 of an inch so that they could cook almost through, creating a nice medium-rare steak without burning the nuts.

The result was quite tasty, the pistachios caramelized nicely, and created some extra interest. I'm sure that if I try this again, I'll actually look for a recipe first. I might try to use something sticky (like egg?) to adhere the crust since there's a lot of collateral loss during the frying process.

Tuesday:

I revisited the Tik n Chik, this time with lime and on Tilapia. I pan fried the result rather than grilling, and it was nice. Tilapia has a muddy catfish-like flavor which is not as complementary with the savory smokey Achiote, as Snapper (which is what we had in Mexico,) but it's not an awful way to go.

Wednesday:

I tried to go ahead and marinate the Tilapia overnight from Tuesday, and then grilled it in the same fashion as the Char.

It was okay, but not great. I much preferred (to my surprise) the pan-fried version.


Summary:

I honestly I can't recall the rest of the week. So that's all I got for now.

So yeah, that's the first week. Last week was pretty boring, but I'll see if I can get this next week off to a good start.